Where Are You Going Where Have You Been feature Analysis

Introduction

Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?is one of the most anthologized short tales by any up to designated day writer. One cause the article may be appealing to scholars is that it presents a convincingly very shrewd portrait of the sort of superficial teenaged young female that all of us have some familiarity with: the attractive, vain, boy-crazy teen apparently so air-headed and so leveraged by pictures of romance from videos and burst melodies that, as Connie's mother states, her brain is all topped up with trashy daydreams (1052).

Analysis

The article may be appealing, too, for scholars and educators alike because it carries broadly distinct possibilities in interpretation. On one degree, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?may be glimpsed as a very shrewd portrayal of a girl's seduction or entrapment by a redirected man who will most expected rape and killing her. On another grade, the article appears to admonish teenage obsession with burst culture—pop melodies in particular. As a sort of mythic tale, the article may furthermore be advised an allegory recounting the seductive affinity of bad, for there are signs that the villain, Arnold Friend, is not solely human, that he may even be the devil. The response to the inquiry of Who is Arnold ally, really?lies at the very heart of each of the distinct comprehendings. Who is Arnold Friend, really? Is he a distracted man, a methodically human rapist and murdered, or could he be the devil in human disguise? Many accept as factual Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?is solely very shrewd, and thus, Arnold partner should inevitably be a authentic person. This outlook is sustained by Oates's remarks on the sources of the story. In Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film, Oates states that the primary concept for Where Are You Going came from a Life Magazine item about a psychopath renowned as The Pied Piper of Tucson, a twenty-three-year-old gymnast who played the hero to a assembly of Tucson teens, and who seduced and killed some teenaged young women (1657). According to Tom Quirk, this Pied Piper, Charles Schmid, was so self-conscious about his short stature that he stuffed his boots with rags and trampled tin containers to make himself emerge bigger than he was. Schmid clothed in teen methods, talked teen lingo, and motored a gold-colored vehicle, just as Arnold Friend does (Quirk 413-15). As Oates states in Smooth Talk, Schmid was described to be so persuasive in attracting the favor of his teen followers that they kept their information of his hideous misdeeds concealed from their parents and the policeman (1657). Knowing that the article was motivated by genuine individuals and happenings, it is so straightforward to glimpse how numerous readers outlook Arnold Friend as merely human, a rotated psychopath who preys upon probable targets—pretty, vain, blameless young children for example Connie. Arnold Friend is an older man who dresses young, frequents ...